اخبار العرب من المحيط للخليج اخبار العرب من المحيط للخليج
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With the ability to control how we are perceived all over the world, we, as a generation, are changing cultural, gender-related and religious narratives faster than ever before. As we continue to submerge further and further into social media culture, there is a huge majority of us that are getting left behind – the older generation.
For 36-year-old Meryem Slimani, that didn’t sit quite right. So, rather than using her Instagram to promote her own style, she decided to marry age, culture and fashion in the form of her 67-year-old mother. Speaking to Buzzfeed, Slimani said: “I was just posting whatever I felt like until at one point I focused completely on her because it felt good and we had fun doing it together.“But more importantly I thought to myself it would probably make for more interesting and unique images that would make my work stand out and hopefully reach more people with time. Because which elderly hijabi woman of colour was being portrayed this way? Not a single one. And I knew I had something special that no one else had.”
Slimani’s Instagram plays a vital role in breaking down the constraints held on women, especially those in the Middle East. “I am also showing that women no matter their size, age, mental health, religion etc can perfectly decide for themselves what they do or don’t [do] with their lives and bodies and can live unapologetically without the approval or judgement of society or their community.
“It’s okay to be you, it’s okay to be different, it’s okay to choose your own path and I hope people in general but mostly women of color and specifically from the MENA (Middle East/North Africa) diaspora are able to see themselves in us and it will give them assurance that they too can stand tall and be proud of themselves, their roots and the choices they make,” she said.
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